ArabicPod101’s video “Thank you & you’re welcome in Arabic”

“Thank you & you’re welcome in Arabic” is a video in ArabicPod101’s “Arabic in 3 Minutes” series. In it, presenter Carole introduces several phrases you can use to say thank you and to respond. Let’s look at the material presented in a bit more detail. Here is the video:

Let’s pick this video apart so that you can get the most benefit out of it. I’ll take you through all of the Arabic she uses, starting with the two phrases at the beginning, before she gets to the phrases concerning thanking people.

“Are you ready? Then let’s start!”

Carole asks if you are all ready, using this phrase:

هَلْ أَنْتُم جاهِزون؟

hal ’antum jaahizuun?

‘Are you ready?’

This is the masculine plural form (which one also uses for groups of mixed gender). The masculine and feminine singular forms of this question would be:

هَلْ أَنْتَ جاهِز؟ / هَلْ أَنْتِ جاهِزَة؟

hal ’anta jaahiz? / hal ’anti jaahiza?

‘Are you ready?’

Assuming that you answered yes to this question, Carole continues by saying this:

فَلْنَبْدَأ!

fa-l-nabda’!

‘Then let’s start!’

This is based on the verb يَبْدَأyabda’ ‘to start, begin’. The ‘we’ form of a present tense verb always starts with na- or nu-:

نُحِبّ

نُرِيد

نَفْهَم

نَرى

نَتَكَلَّم

nuḥibb

nuriid

nafham

naraa

natakallam

‘we love’

‘we want’

‘we understand’

‘we see’

‘we speak’

Now let’s move on to the meat of the matter.

Thanking people

The first phrase Carole introduces is shukran, which is oddly misspelled in the video, without the -an ending. Here is the correct spelling:

شُكْرًا.

shukran

‘Thank you.’

As Carole explains, you can elaborate on this by adding an additional word: